Spinner's End
by Marston Chicklet
Summary: A drive down Nostalgia Lane.


Written for the dual purpose of celebrating Harmony Bites's birthday and bribing her into updating her WIP. Mostly for selfish reasons of bribery, though.

———

The autumn wind carried with it a distinct bite that stripped the trees of the last of their leaves and slapped the rain against the windshield. The headlights danced along the lane as the car trundled forward; inside, the man clutched the door handle in silent desperation as the woman calmly navigated the ruts.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're an absolutely horrible driver?" The combination of the light reflecting off a fence and the glow from the rear view mirror made his face glow in the darkness, though even that was not enough to take away the faintly green tinge.

"Says the man who practically wet himself when my father offered to teach him how to drive."

"I don't need to drive; I can apparate."

"Except on those occasions when you let the wards on your old home run wild for a decade, so that they no longer recognise you." The woman braked to peer at a crooked sign. "Severus, are you sure this is the right street? There was no 'Wisteria Lane' on the map."

"One of the spells I used in the wards was designed to carry any undesirables back to the centre of town," said the man called Severus. "God knows where they lead to now."

"Fortunately, we have a map, and know better than to follow our instincts. Straight forward, then?"

The car continued on its journey, bouncing across potholes as the road faded from asphalt into cobblestone into gravel and then grass, making the woman grip the steering wheel until her knuckles were as white as Severus' face.

"Is this still a road?"

"It is."

"Just the wards acting up, then?"

"Steady on. We're almost there—we just passed the playground."

"How am I supposed to know whether or not I'm even on the road?" she muttered, twisting the dial to defrost as the windows began to fog.

"You do realise that you just robbed my toes of the only thing that was ensuring they stayed attached to my feet."

She scowled. "You can pick between your toes or your life. If you get the heater back, I won't be able to see a bloody thing."

He pulled one of her hands off of the steering wheel and pressed it between his to calm the trembling. "Hermione, you'll get us there in one piece. The wards aren't designed to kill."

"You've just set them to stun, then?" she asked, giggling at the blank look her weak joke received.

"Pardon?"

"Never mind. Now, do you mind keeping an eye out for landmarks?"

———

They pulled up the drive shortly after midnight and nearly an hour of Severus dismantling the particularly troublesome wards. As he attempted to coax the disgruntled front door open, Hermione huddled in the car with an emergency blanket tucked around the shoulders.

"How are you managing?" she said through the window, just loud enough that he would be able to hear.

His answer was little more than a grunt and a shrug as he conjured a hairpin and wrestled with the lock. Hermione considered going out to help him, but the idling car was far cosier than the damp October weather and the drive had been harrowing enough that she was too occupied with being grateful for their survival to consider any other tasks than basking in the gloriousness of survival. Besides, lock-picking was a job for one, and keeping put gave her the opportunity to survey the property and give her a sense of what work would need to be done before it could be put up for sale.

Spinner's End was far smaller than she had expected, with all the dilapidation that could come from decades of apathetic owners and eleven years of standing uninhabited. Even in the moonlight she could see the flowerbeds that were a tangled mess of weeds and dead plants, the peeling paint, and the windows dirty enough to appear frosted over. And that was just the outside.

There were some things, she knew, that would have to be done by hand, like the garden, but most of them would need some simple wand-waving and the paint would be stripped and the windows clean; she was grateful for that.

She glanced back at the door, where Severus was now gesturing at her excitedly.

"Are we in?" she said, leaning her head out of the window.

He nodded, and she switched off the ignition as she snatched up their overnight bags.

The walk up to the house was muddy, making her glad that she was wearing old trainers. After huddling in the warmth of the car, she found the fresh air a shock to the system and bolted to where Severus was waiting with her teeth chattering. He ushered her in, closing the door behind them and wrapping his arms around her tightly.

"Fuck, it's cold," he said. "I was worried about my toes before, but now I think that my fingers will be the extremity sacrificed to the cause."

"Didn't you have gloves? I could have lent you some." Her voice was muffled by the way that her face was pressed into his shoulder.

"I didn't think it would take that long, did I?"

She smiled, stretching her neck to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Stubborn man. Shall we go in search of the breaker?"

———

Half an hour later found them curled up in sleeping bags in the kitchen, the only room with significant floor space, around a candle. Hermione had insinuated into the space in front of him, her back pressed into his belly, and sleeping bag-encased legs winding around his.

"I've been thinking—"

"Oh, dear."

She slapped him lightly and giggled. "Shut up. This is important."

He schooled his face into a mask of solemnity. "Then, by all means, continue."

"I've been thinking that it's hardly fair that we have to sell your house to have enough money to start everything up once we're married. I mean, the honeymoon in Italy was hardly your idea and I haven't got much money that I can put into the business—just what I've been saving, and you know how the Ministry pays."

"You'll be bringing in the profit when we have things running, though."

"You'll be doing just as much work," she said. "And you're missing the point—I don't have to give anything up. You do."

Severus glanced around the room with a raised eyebrow. "Having now seen the house, I'm sure that you can appreciate how heart-wrenching the decision was."

"But it's the place where you grew up."

"And I have such fond memories of that."

"You must have enjoyed something about it," she said, tilting her head so that she could see him and quirking her lips up.

"Which part? The parents who hated each other, and possibly me by extension? Or the friendship with my childhood sweetheart that when horribly wrong?"

"Now you're just being ornery."

"Of course I am—it's what I do."

"We could turn Spinner's End into a nice summer home or a place to visit when we're on holiday."

"Yes, the scene would be so picturesque, with the scent of the river drifting up through the open window, mingling with the wailing of Celestina Warbeck, the mill cheerfully smoking in the background."

"Fine, I get it." She was relieved really—this was his way of signalling that the part of his life devoted to Lily had ended, that he had moved on and it only remained as a painful reminder of his youthful idiocy.

"Thank goodness. All I want is to tidy this place up enough to be marketable, then to take the Galleons and run."

"Pounds," she said, correcting him as she traced a finger along the outside of his face. "We'll get more for it on the Muggle market—demand is higher."

"I don't think that there will be any demand for anything in this town."

He lowered his face down to hers and gently pressed his lips against hers. "Now, can we stop discussing real estate? Your bare shoulders cruelly suggest to me that you have nothing on inside that sleeping bag of yours and I'm simply dying to investigate.

"Happily," she replied, taking the sleeping bag's zipper between her teeth with a cheeky grin.


End file.
